Activists are trying to stage an unprecedented defection, while some Democrats are trying to get electors to peal away from Hillary and "elect" a consensus candidate.

The argument being made is that Hillary won the popular vote, and Trump is unsuited to the presidency.

Brian Westrate, a small business owner and GOP district chairman in Wisconsin, told Rachel La Corte at AP he is being inundated with people trying to get him to change his vote although Trump won the state. He said, "Let me give you the total as of right now: 48,324 emails about my role as an elector."

Hector Maldonado, a Missouri National Guardsman, says he even took time to console one of the activists who contacted him. A single mother and Air Force veteran who "is beside herself with worry about what a Trump presidency will mean."

He said I told her, "Everything's going to be OK. I know you're scared, but don't worry. Everything's going to be OK. And I know that it will be."

She says, "I average anywhere from a thousand to 3000 emails a day. And I'm getting inundated in my regular mailbox out front---anywhere from 17 to 35 letters a day coming from Washington state, Oregon, all around the country. Handwritten, some of them 5 or 6 pages long, quoting me the Federalist Papers, the Constitution, asking me again out of desperation not to vote for Donald Trump."

Edward Robson, a Phoenix home builder, told AP he "got a stack of letters from idiots."

Is the effort to deny Trump working?

AP says it isn't.

They spoke with more than 330 electors who feel duty bound to do what they agreed to do.

As you know, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes to become president.

Despite losing the popular vote, Trump won enough states to total 306 electoral votes. He would need to see 36 votes fall away from him to lose the majority electoral vote.

AP says only 1 Republican elector told them he wasn't going to vote for Trump.

"Over the sweep of history," AP says "so-called faithless electors---those who vote for someone other than their state's popular vote winner---have been exceptionally rare."

Here's why.

Maldonaldo, the Mexican immigrant and medical supply salesman, says he originally backed Ted Cruz, but will vote for Trump "with conviction."

He says, "I took an oath to become a US citizen on August 14, 1995. That was my first oath in support of the Constitution. A year later, I took the oath again to support the duties of being an officer in the US Army. This was the third oath that I've taken to execute what I promised to do."

Tom Lawless, a Nashville attorney who supported Rubio, told AP, "Hell will freeze and we will be skating on lava before I change. He won the state and I've pledged and gave my word that, that's what I would do. And I won't break it."

Even Bret Chiafalo, the leader of the anti-Trump movement up in Everett (Washington) who supported Bernie, calls this "a losing bet"---but one he says "our Founders would want him to make."

AP sums up what they believe will be the result of Monday's election with what of one of the electors---Carole Joyce says about all this: "That's their right. I've had nothing threatening, I'm happy to say. The election is over, they need to move on."